Obituaries - Oct. 21, 1999

George Beck; Screenwriter, Director

George Beck, 92, screenwriter and director who was a founding member of Writers Guild of America West. Born in New York, Beck began his Hollywood career as an actor in minor roles including the 1936 film “Unlucky Jim.” He achieved more success as a writer, creating the stories for such popular films as “Hired Wife” in 1940, starring Rosalind Russell as the secretary to Brian Aherne, and “Take a Letter, Darling” in 1942, with Russell as an advertising executive falling in love with her secretary, Fred MacMurray. Beck also wrote and directed “Behave Yourself” in 1951, starring Farley Granger, Shelley Winters and Hans Conreid. In 1966, he wrote the story and was associate producer of “Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!” starring Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller and Elke Sommer. Beck also was active in the Directors Guild of America. On Oct. 6 in Los Angeles.

Jack Lynch; Former Prime Minister of Ireland

Jack Lynch, 82, former prime minister of the republic of Ireland who reneged on promises to aid residents of violence-torn Northern Ireland. Lynch, prime minister from 1966 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1978, was best remembered for his rhetorical intervention in August 1969 as Protestant police battled Catholic rioters in Londonderry in British-ruled Northern Ireland. Lynch declared that “the Irish government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.” He moved some army units to the border to open field hospitals for refugees, but Lynch never ordered his tiny army to cross the border to aid the embattled Catholics. After his second victory in 1977, Lynch demonstrated growing realism toward the “Northern question,” commenting: “I believe that the [Protestant] people of the north could be realistic enough and hardheaded enough to know that there should be accommodation found between the [north’s Catholic] minority and themselves in the first instance, and between them and us in the long run.” Because of lavish overspending in his 1978 budget and resulting deficits and inflation, Lynch resigned from office in December 1978. On Wednesday in Dublin, Ireland, of complications after a stroke.

Jane Small; Civil Rights Activist

Jane Small, 69, civil rights activist and former chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities. Small began her activism as a freedom bus rider with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, and concentrated on politics in the ensuing decade as a “founding mother” of the National Women’s Political Caucus. After she was disabled and forced to use a wheelchair, she directed her attention to providing civil rights for the handicapped. Although she was an early political organizer for Mayor Tom Bradley, Small objected to his policies toward the disabled and resigned in protest in 1988 from his city Advisory Council on Disability. The year before, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman named Small to the county Commission on Disabilities. Small also was a founding member of the Los Angeles Coalition for Disability Rights and president of the West Los Angeles chapter of the California Assn. of the Physically Handicapped who led efforts to open UCLA facilities to handicapped students. Her husband, Hugh Hallenberg, chairman of the Disability Caucus of the Democratic Central Committee, credited Small with originating October as Disability Awareness Month in California. On Friday in Los Angeles.